How Does One Reconcile God's Providence and Man's Free Will? - Book V from the "Consolation of Philosophy" by Boethius

Stephen Alexander Beach 

(2184 Words)

The Consolation of Philosophy Book V

"Philosophy Discusses 'Chance'" 

After discussing God's providence with Lady Philosophy, Boethius asks her about her understanding of chance and if it exists. Philosophy responds by saying that if, by chance, one means "an outcome of random influence, produced by no sequence of causes" then it cannot exist. This is because nothing can come from nothing, and so to say that an effect is produced by no causes is absurd. And therefore, if every effect be connected with its proper cause, and all causes fall under the first causality of God, then chance cannot exist using this definition.

And so Boethius asks about how the word is used in common parlance, to which Philosophy refers to Aristotle's explanation in the Physics. Aristotle's definition for chance was the co-incidence of two events which were not intended to be united or to intersect, and yet they did, and thus their end result is what we call chance. She uses the example of a man tilling a field and finding a buried treasure. Neither the man who buried it nor the farmer intended for the treasure to be found, but due to the intersection of these events for other purposes, it was found - thus by chance. But it is still the case that the intended events which were happening have causes themselves, all which falls under the first causality of God's providence. "The order of the universe, advancing with its inevitable sequences, brings about this coincidence of causes. This order itself emanates from its source, which is Providence, and disposes all things in their proper time and place." 1 

What About Free Will? - Boethius Questions 

Boethius next questions the role of free will and it chance destroys it. Lady Philosophy responds by saying that any being with reason also has free will. This is because to be able to reflect and make judgments about what to seek and what to avoid. In man these powers can be corrupted by the desires of the body in which a man shuns the life of the spirit and mind and is captivated by slavery to the senses. 2 But Boethius is still confused because he cannot seem to reconcile the foreknowledge of God of all things in his providence and the ability for man to choose freely, for will not God's knowledge of past, present, and future make human actions determined already? "'There seems to me,' I said, 'to be such incompatibility between the existence of God's universal foreknowledge and that of any freedom of judgment. For if God foresees all things and cannot in anything be mistaken, that, which His Providence sees will happen, must result. Wherefore if it knows beforehand not only men's deeds but even their designs and wishes, there will be no freedom of judgment. For there can neither be any deed done, nor wish formed, except such as the infallible Providence of God has foreseen. For if matters could ever so be turned that they resulted otherwise than was foreseen of Providence, this foreknowledge would cease to be sure."

Boethius thinks about how regardless if an event happens because providence had foreseen it, or if providence sees it because it happened already, both have a dependency on each other, and both, he thinks, destroys free will. And yet, he corrects himself, because both propositions are absurd, as they both involve God in the sequence of succession and time. The knowledge of God is not dependent on temporal events. Temporal events, rather, are completely dependent on God's knowledge, for he cannot be mistaken in what he knows. 3 But, again, doesn't this destroy man's free will? And this would itself be unjust to reward and punish people based on actions that were not free to begin with. Pray too would be meaningless. 4 

Lady Philosophy is going to try to clear things up for Boethius. She points out that the point at which his thinking breaks down has to do with the notion that if God's foreknowledge be sure, then man has no free will. Her claims is that though God's foreknowledge exists of the future, it does not make those events of necessity in themselves, and so free will survives. So the question is, are foreknowledge and necessity always bound together? "... that though they occur, yet they have had no necessity in their own natures which brought them about. ... Therefore, if things have no necessity for coming to pass when they do, they cannot have any necessity to be about to come to pass before they do. Wherefore there are things whose results are entirely free from necessity. For I think not that there is any man who will say this, that things, which are done in the present, were not about to be done in the past, before they are done. Thus these foreknown events have their free results. Just as foreknowledge of present things brings no necessity to bear upon them as they come to pass, so also foreknowledge of future things brings no necessity to hear upon things which are to come." She points out that Boethius is of the opinion that something cannot be foreknown and yet still be uncertain for the actors in the events, but she disagrees. 5 

The Key Insight: Modes of Knowing

Lady Philosophy points out that often men think that they know true things in and of themselves, but this would be a mistake, for men know according to their mode of knowing, which may not exhaust the truth of the thing itself. "For every subject, that is known, is comprehended not according to its own force, but rather according to the nature of those who know it." She gives the example of the levels and modes of knowing, of which there is the sensual, the imagination, reason, and intelligence. In encountering a ball, for example, touch knows only by its physical closeness and examination, but sight takes in the whole ball at once. Imagination, then, can encounter the ball without the actual ball in its musings in the mind. Reason can abstract the conceptual form of the ball and know it yet on a higher plane as an idea. And finally the pure intelligence of God knows the perfect form of ball in a simultaneous possession of the whole of the idea. Each mode is different, and the higher modes include those of the lower mode, but not vice versa. 

"Herein the chief point for our consideration is this: the higher the power of understanding includes the lower, but the lower never rises to the higher. For the senses are capable of understanding naught but the matter; imagination cannot look upon universals or natural kinds; reason cannot comprehend the absolute form; whereas the intelligence seems to look down from above and comprehend the form, and distinguishes all that lie below, but in such a way that it grasps the very form which could not be known to any other than itself. For it perceives and knows the general kind, as does reason; the appearance, as does the imagination; and the matter, as do the senses, but with one grasp of the mind it looks upon all with a clear conception of the whole." 6

She then talks about how the knowledge of men begins with the senses only. When the senses encounter some physical thing and receive an impression, it is only then that the activity of the mind can use that to create an idea. And so the impressions of physical things has no direct affect on the mind, but on the senses. So too, would it not be the same with regard to the physical world and its inability to affect angels or God? If the senses objected that reason cannot speak about them because it knows not the singular and individual, reason would reply that it knows the knowledge of the senses and imagination, just in a higher mode, and thus should be trusted more. "It is in like manner that human reason thinks that the divine intelligence cannot perceive the things of the future except as it conceives them itself." 7 

Lady Philosophy concludes this explanation with a beautiful injunction: "'Let us therefore raise ourselves, if so be that we can, to that height of the loftiest intelligence. For there reason will see what it cannot of itself perceive, and that is to know how even such things as have uncertain results are perceived definitely and for certain by foreknowledge; and such foreknowledge will not be mere opinion, but rather the single and direct form of the highest knowledge unlimited by any finite bounds."

God's View Point in Eternity 

 Lady Philosophy has shown so far that the mode of the knower is important. And so what is it to know from God's point of view? This will require one to penetrate the concept of eternity. She defines it as: "'Eternity is the simultaneous and complete possession of infinite life.'" This is in comparison to temporality in which one is subject to change flowing change of time in which yesterday is gone and tomorrow doesn't exist and the present moment is fleeting. While in the view of Aristotle time may be unendingly infinite, it is not an infinity of simultaneous possession, but rather is continually spreading out. "What we should rightly call eternal is that which grasps and possesses wholly and simultaneously the fullness of unending life, which lacks naught of the future, and has lost naught of the fleeting past..." 8 

The continuation of time in the temporal order imitates God's perfect present by having present moments, but moments that are fleeting and flow into one another continually. The material order cannot embrace itself in its fullness. But God embraces the created order in its fullness, viewing every moment from its present. "... God has a condition of ever-present eternity, His knowledge, which passes over every change of time, embracing infinite lengths of past and future, views in its own direct comprehension everything as though it were taking place in the present." And so as God looks at every present moment simultaneously, it is not necessary to likewise say they were predetermined in their outcomes and that man was not free. 

From God's perspective, one might say, it is necessary, but from man's perspective, it is not predetermined. "For I shall answer that such a thing will occur of necessity, when it is viewed from the point of view of divine knowledge; but when it is examined in its own nature, it seems perfectly free and unrestrained." 9 

Two Kinds of Necessity

To make this point even clearer, Lady Philosophy makes a distinction between two kinds of necessity. There is both a "simple" and a "conditional" necessity. One refers to the fact that it could not be otherwise due to its following of a law. The other refers to the fact that something happened, though it could have happened differently. Therefore we can say that human action from the perspective of God's knowledge they are necessary conditionally, but from man's perspective they were free. "Therefore if these things be looked at from the point of view of God's insight, they come to pass of necessity under the condition of divine knowledge; if, on the other hand, they are viewed in themselves, they do not lose the perfect freedom of their nature." 

To better understand this one must appeal to the nature of the entity in the temporal order. Lady Philosophy uses the example of the sun setting and a man walking. The sun setting, by its nature, is determined, while the man is not because man has free will. Therefore, one is determined both from the perspective of divine knowledge and the temporal order, while the man is determined only from the perspective of divine knowledge and not by the temporal order. Even when one is conscious of their free will and changes their mind in the moment, this moment has never escaped God's divine vision and thus does nothing to God's perfect knowledge and providence. 10

A Final Injunction

"Thus, therefore, mortal men have their freedom of judgment intact. And since their wills are freed from ever binding necessity, laws do not set rewards or punishments unjustly. God is ever the constant foreknowing overseer, and the ever-present eternity of His sight moves in harmony with the future nature of our actions, as it dispenses rewards to the good, and punishments to the bad. Hopes are not vainly put in God, nor prayers in vain offered: if these are right, they cannot but be answered. Turn therefore from vice: ensue virtue: raise your soul to upright hopes: send up on high your prayers from this earth. If you would be honest, great is the necessity enjoined upon your goodness, since all you do is done before the eyes of an all-seeing Judge." 11

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1 - Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. PDF attached 61

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